Evolution and Cochlear Implant

AiG researcher and speaker Dr. Georgia Purdom wrote a fascinating and instructive blog posting on her AiG speaker’s blog that I thought would be good for all of you to read. Dr. Purdom writes:

A couple months ago, I responded to a skeptic who commented on my blog about an event I spoke at in Montana. Interestingly, a response by RBH to the skeptic’s blog about this event stated this:

“I wonder if Purdom knows that the cochlear implant she mentions as having received is in part due to the work of a former student of mine, an evolutionist.”

As many scientists over the years have researched and developed the cochlear implant, there is no way to know which person he is referring to. However, RBH’s comment illustrates a very common misconception (or purposeful deception) about science.

The science that gives me hearing in the form of a cochlear implant is observational or operational science. I call it the “here and now” science (no pun intended!) It’s the kind of science I did in the lab every day as a graduate student. This type of science gives us airplanes, MRIs, computers, cochlear implants, and cars. It is observable, testable, repeatable, and falsifiable. It has absolutely nothing to do with evolution. I guarantee that no one in the lab I worked or any other lab at my graduate institution referred to Darwin’s Origin of Species on a daily basis for guidance in their work. In fact, only one part of one graduate class I took was even devoted to the topic of evolution. We had more important things to learn that would apply to the observational/operational science we were doing every day in the lab.